


Revelations

by AnnaOnTheMoon, GottaHaveAName



Series: Broken Chains [3]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 11:01:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14424021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaOnTheMoon/pseuds/AnnaOnTheMoon, https://archiveofourown.org/users/GottaHaveAName/pseuds/GottaHaveAName
Summary: A continuation of the aftermath of Chain of Command.  Jean-Luc and Beverly continue to discover how his captivity and torture affect them, their relationship, and possible future.





	Revelations

**Author's Note:**

> This is the third story in the Broken Chains series. This story will make much more sense if you read Chained No More and Something Good, but if you don't, know that Jean-Luc has been returned from being tortured by Gul Madred and are admitting their love to one another.

Jean-Luc woke up to the unfamiliar sensation of hair brushing against his shoulder. During the night, they’d switched positions, so he was lying with his head on her chest, which gave her lovely hair the occasion to tease him. He leaned up on his elbow so he could look down on her as she slept. 

His hands were numb. Scratch that, they were painful and numb all at the same time, and the more he leaned on his elbow, the worse his hand hurt. It wasn’t until he shifted his shoulder to readjust his position that he felt the rod of molten iron that was twisting and impaling him from the outside of his shoulder to his sternum, where it shifted a bit, ran down his chest, and then out his other shoulder. With a moan, he laid back down, hoping to hide the worst of the pain before she could see it.

“Jean-Luc!” Beverly sat up, fully awake at the first sound of his pain. “What happened?”

“I tried watching you sleep.” He smiled ruefully. “So much for thinking my shoulders could hold my weight.”

“Stay still.” She was out of bed and across the room in seconds. Retrieving her tricorder and a hypospray of his pain medication, she returned to sit on the edge next to him. “Good morning.” She pressed a soft kiss to his forehead. “Let’s get your pain under control, and then we’ll have some breakfast.”

“There’s something I’d rather do instead.”

“I know.” She smiled as she ran the tricorder over his chest and arms. “But do you really think you can?” 

“Do you want an honest answer?”

“Yes.” She leveled a stern look at him. “Full partnership here, Mister. I’m not doing all the work.”

“Never?” He cocked an eyebrow at her. 

“At least not the first few times.” With a wink, she pressed the hypospray to his neck. “Give that just a few minutes, and we’ll get dressed.”

####

Dressing proved a frustration. Jean-Luc chaffed at his useless hands, angry that not only could he not make love to Beverly, but he couldn’t fasten his pants, zip his zipper, put his boots on, or comb down that annoying part of his severely-receding hairline that wanted to stand up just to be contrary. 

“Settle down, Jean-Luc. You’re not the first person who’s needed help with getting dressed.”

“I know, but it doesn’t mean I need to like it.”

“No, but you can be grateful that you’re here and not in sickbay in front of all of the nurses.”

“I’m being an ass, aren’t I?”

“Completely and unmitigated.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not, but I’ll accept your apology anyway.”

“What did I ever do to deserve you?”

“You’ve loved me for twenty years. I think you’ve earned me.”

“You are a prize.”

“Sweet-talker.” She pinched his butt as they left the bedroom.

“Hey!” He whipped around. “What was that for?”

“Something for you to work towards.”

“Pinching your ass?”

“Well, it will be good for fine-motor skills.” She laughed at him as he rolled his eyes and turned back around. 

“So what’s for breakfast?” He looked down at his hands, which were still painfully numb. 

“I know you won’t like it, but I got up during the night and brought you something from sickbay.”

“What?” He eyed her warily as she set a box on the table. 

“These are specially designed utensils that have thick handles so you can grasp them and they are on swivels so even if your hand shakes, the part holding your food will remain level.”

“No.” He sat back.

“Yes.” She opened the box and he glowered at her as she opened the Velcro clasp on the back of one. “Give me whichever hand you want your fork to be in.”

“I’m not using those.”

“Then how do you propose to eat?”

“Soup worked well enough last night.”

“You can’t eat soup three meals a day for the foreseeable future.” 

“I’m not using those.”

“Then how do you propose to eat?” She looked at his hands, which had been stiff and unyielding all morning. “Rather like the man they’re attached to,” she thought grimly.

“I’ll replicate something simple for myself.”

“Oh, this I need to see.”

Jean-Luc practically snarled at her as he rose and approached the replicator. He thought through meals and how to get them back to the table. With a sinking heart, he realized she was right. He was at her mercy…for now. She’d pay for this later. 

Breakfast became pancakes, fruit, and juice. He grumbled slightly over the straw in the juice, but quickly realized his… partner … was right. His hands were shaking five bites in, and only the leveling action of the fork ensured food actually made it to his mouth. He gripped the large handle of both the spoon and the fork, but found that his fingers would let loose, and only the Velcro on the back held the offensive piece to his hand. He leaned forward and took a sip of his juice through the straw and considered thanking Beverly for making sure he didn’t suffer this humiliation in sickbay. 

“No, not yet,” he decided. He knew being angry over help was no excuse, yet he couldn’t seem to help the feelings of absolute outrage that he found himself needing to be coddled like a toddler. He was, however, thankful that she’d not produced a bib.

######

“We’re going to start you with some heat therapy.” Beverly smiled at Jean-Luc when he reported to sickbay an hour after she’d left his quarters. 

“More hot wax?” 

“Nope.” Dr. Crusher smiled at her grouchy patient. “You’re going to change into a swimming suit with the help of Nurse Faranz, and then he’ll help you get into a whirlpool. I want to use heat for more than just your hands, as your legs, back, and shoulders are all still recovering.”

“Shouldn’t we be focusing on one thing at a time?”

“Our bodies don’t work like that, Captain.” Beverly sighed. “Yes, while we’re triaging, or deciding on the most urgent issues to fix and in what order to work on serious injuries, we can focus on one thing, but not when it comes to physical therapy. If we make your back feel better but ignore your shoulders, then your back will hurt worse when we begin to work on your shoulders.”

“Fine.” He looked glumly at the floor. “Could you help me change?”

“I’m sorry, no. I’ve got other patients to see.” She leaned forward. “Besides, we need to discuss if we’re going to fill out fraternization papers or not.”

“We bloody well are, and you know it.” He tried to hold a stern gaze despite her efforts to not laugh at him, but he eventually caved. “I’m sorry I’m so foul today. I don’t know why I’m so angry. I just am.”

“You’re processing trauma.” Beverly shrugged. “I’m going to have Deanna come in and talk to you while you’re in the whirlpool, if that’s ok.”

“Am I that miserable?”

“Worse.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Is it any consolation to know that you’re adorable when you’re mad?”

“The captain of a starship should never be seen as adorable.”

“Sorry.” Beverly snickered. “You’re just reminding me of Wesley when he was little and not getting his way. He’d pout, just like you’re doing.” She leaned forward and kissed his nose. 

“Oh, stuff it.” Jean-Luc turned and walked to the room she’d previously pointed out for him to change in. 

Nurse Ogawa stood off to the side, doing her best to pretend she didn’t exist. She had all the respect in the world for her captain, the doctor she worked for, and the couple together, but it was taking all of her willpower to not laugh at them. She only hoped she’d be able to handle Andrew half as well if he ever became injured.

#####

Deanna breezed into sickbay fifteen minutes after Captain Picard had made it to the whirlpool. 

“How is he this morning, Beverly?”

“He’s surly, cranky, grumpy, and every other unpleasant adjective you can think of while maintaining professional decorum.”

“I have to say that I’m feeling a bit of that emotion coming from you, as well.” Deanna leveled a pointed look at her friend. 

“Yes, you can certainly say that.” Beverly nodded towards her office, and once they were inside, closed the door. “He woke up in pain this morning, so my day started off with running for my tricorder and his pain medication. Then he was angry over the utensils I’d gotten for him to eat with, even though he finally used them and actually ate. But that was a battle. He didn’t want this, didn’t want that, I swear he was saying no to things before I even finished forming the idea. He’s just been contrary all day.”

“How long was he in pain before you got to him?” 

“Not long.” Beverly sighed. Her friend would probably figure it out soon, but she really hoped not. “I got to him pretty quickly.”

“How quickly? The wait time may be part of how he’s revisiting the trauma.”

“There wasn’t much of a wait time.” Beverly took a deep breath. “I slept in his quarters last night. I didn’t think he should be alone, but I also knew he’d rest better there than here.”

“That makes sense.” Deanna smiled. “So it was literally a trip from the couch to the bedroom.”

“Something like that, yes.” Beverly tried to not feel as relieved as she did. That’d be a giveaway if anything was.

“Alright. I think I know all I need to from you for now.” Deanna smiled, pulling her professional happy-to-help-you-let-me-pretend-your-pain-isn’t-killing-me persona to the front. Trauma was always difficult, and the more often the person was traumatized, the less their brain wanted to let go of it. 

Jean-Luc Picard had been traumatized many times over since joining Starfleet, and there’s no telling what he didn’t speak of before joining. His few shared memories of childhood were innocuous enough, but it struck Deanna that he seemed to rehash the same memories without providing any additional information. 

She wondered if he’d ever come to the point of being willing (or able) to work through leftover childhood trauma, but considering he was in his fifties and wouldn’t admit to that sort of trauma, she doubted it. 

“Good morning, Captain.”

“Good morning.” He smiled wanly. “Are you here to castigate me for my behavior towards Beverly this morning?”

“No, but I think you’re doing a fine job of that for yourself.” 

Picard scoffed. “Yes.” He moved his arms around nervously. “So what brings you here?”

“You know I need to do an evaluation of your fitness for duty, Captain.”

“I didn’t realize you’d do that while I’m half-naked sitting in a tub.”

“You’re trapped. It seemed like a good idea.” 

“You and Beverly and your infernal need for humor.”

“I am only mirroring your sarcasm.”

“Well stop it.”

“You’re in a fine mood this morning.”

“If you’re expecting me to smile and tell you I’m perfectly fine, you’ll need to come back after I can use my hands again.”

“What has you so angry over needing therapy?”

“Beverly had to help me get undressed, take a shower, get dressed yet again because I can’t button my pajama top, and then this morning she had to repeat the whole damned process, only she threw in infantile flatware instead of allowing me to have soup.” He looked up, an expression of ire on his face that would have been funny had he not been so serious. “I can eat soup for all three meals for however long it takes if it means I don’t have to feel like a messy child!”

“If you really wanted soup this morning, why didn’t you get it for yourself?”

“I couldn’t carry it to the table.” He looked away, refusing to admit defeat just yet. “She could have carried it, but she said I needed more than soup.”

“She’s right, you know.”

“Siding with the enemy, are you?”

“Is Beverly your enemy?”

“No.” He looked less sullen for a moment and tried to find the words to express himself. “She’s…” He cleared his throat. “She’s my everything. I wanted to watch her sleeping last night. Having her in my arms,” He paused a moment, searching for the proper words yet again, “It felt so right.” He spoke softly and Deanna had to strain to hear him over the whirlpool. Her eyebrows rose when she realized her captain was admitting intimate details to her.

“Tell me why you’re so angry, then, over her helping you and making sure you have what’s best.”  
Jean-Luc’s eyes flashed with anger. “She’s my weakness, dammit, and he knew it!”

“Your weakness?”

“Yes.” Picard lowered his head. “He offered to release me at one point. I stood to go, and he let me know he’d simply move on to Beverly.” Jean-Luc swallowed hard. “I sat back down. He kept torturing me because I was trying to protect her.” His last two words were barely whispers. 

“Would you have protected anyone that way?”

“I’m not sure.” His voice wavered. “I was in so much pain, and I could feel my shoulders sitting unnaturally, but I couldn’t get my arms all the way down. I’d been hung, my lungs burned, and I lived in fear of the moment my arms wouldn’t be able to pull me up any longer, and I’d hang there, suffocating…”

“What kept you there, enduring that agony?”

“The thought that I was keeping Beverly safe.” Jean-Luc swallowed hard. “If he was torturing me, if he was focused on breaking me, then he was leaving Beverly alone. I had to.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I couldn’t let her suffer like that.”

“How do you feel about all of this, now that you know she was safe the whole time?”

“Like a fool.”

“A fool?”

“Yes.” Picard grimaced. “I should have realized he was bluffing. I should have seen some tell, some unspoken signal to let me know he was lying. I missed any signs he gave.”

“He may not have given any, Captain.”

“I doubt that.”

“Possibly.” Deanna nodded. “Now, what is so hard about acknowledging that you have a strong connection with Beverly that someone used to their advantage?”  
Picard sat silently, glaring at some unseen foe. 

“Sir?” Deanna reached out and gently touched his hand. “Why is it so hard?”

“Someone can do it again, dammit!”

“Do you think someone will?”

“I hope not.” He cleared his throat. “Now that I know she loves me as well, I’m not willing to put aside my feelings for her any longer.”  
Unbeknownst to them, Beverly sat in her office with the intercom muted. She’d intended to ask Jean-Luc if he needed anything before he and Deanna got into his therapy session, but they’d already started. She heard him tell Deanna how right it felt to sleep with her in his arms, and had been hanging on his every word since. 

Beverly’s hand flew to her mouth, covering quiet cries as she heard him tell of the horrors of his torture. A quote her grandmother had often said ran through her head, and she understood Jean-Luc’s actions with a stunning new clarity: “love is doing the best for another, regardless of the cost to yourself”. He loved her to the point of death. Her mind raced through memories of how Jack hadn’t been willing to spend six months on leave after Wesley’s birth. She knew she shouldn't try to compare Jack to Jean-Luc, but it was something she had been doing her entire adult life in a bid to convince herself marrying Jack had been the right thing, yet here was Jean-Luc, admitting that he’d been prepared to die to keep her safe. 

Her stomach churned at the idea of his fear that someone may use her as a weapon against him again, and how it may impact their ability to be together. Her face paled and she began to shake as she realized that she may need to respect his decision to distance himself from her again, if that’s a choice he felt compelled to make. She felt his declaration of not being willing to set aside his feelings any longer like a shockwave of joy. She couldn’t stop the sobs that wracked her body as she turned off the intercom. 

####

Jean-Luc’s joint therapy session ended, and he felt mildly disappointed that Nurse Faranz, and not Beverly, came in to help him get out of the whirlpool and redress. Dr. Selar met him in the main therapy room and began the stretching exercises that Beverly had explained to him that morning. He grimaced through the pain, and then felt a bit glad that he didn’t have to face Beverly yet. He wasn’t sure he could put her through seeing his tears of pain towards the end. Dr. Selar covered his chest and arms with the regenerator unit before leaving him to rest. 

“Dr. Crusher will be in shortly.” Selar looked down at him with her usual placid expression. “She was detained by an unforeseen circumstance and sends her apologies.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” 

Twenty minutes later, his regeneration therapy was finished, and Beverly came quietly into the room. 

She looked down at him and smiled gently.

“Hey, there.”

“Hello.” Jean-Luc smiled back. “Are we finished for the day?”

“Yes, and Dr. Selar is going to take over here, so we can head home.”

“Home, eh?”

“Yes.” With a brief kiss to his forehead, she opened the unit and helped him sit up. “Are you ready?”

“Provided you’ll tell me what has you so melancholy.”

“Not here.” 

“Alright.” Jean-Luc did his best to squeeze her hand. 

“You’ve got a little more mobility in that hand.”

“I do.” He pressed a gentle kiss to her fingers. “Thank you.”

“Come on.” Beverly tugged at his hand. “Let’s go.” 

#####

The couple walked quietly down the hall, hands still entwined. They entered his quarters, and he pulled her into a hug. 

“Now tell me what’s wrong, my love.”

“I love you.” Beverly wrapped her arms tightly around him, pressing her head into his neck. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I’m so sorry.”

“What brings this on?”

“I heard what you said to Deanna.” Beverly drew in a ragged breath, moving her face so that she was speaking directly into his ear. “I was going to ask you if you wanted to join me for lunch after therapy, and I heard everything you said.” 

“Oh, Beverly.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want you feeling guilty for anything he did.” Jean-Luc rubbed her back gently. “Come here.” He broke away from her embrace and led her to the couch. 

“Sit with me.”

They sat cuddled closely on the couch as he let her explain to him how his words affected her. Beverly played with his fingers entwined with hers and he wished desperately he could feel her. Beverly tried to hold back her tears. 

“Not even Jack loved me like that, Jean-Luc.” 

A tear escaped her eye and Jean-Luc brought his hand up to brush it away. He succeeded in rubbing her face instead. She softly smiled at the attempt and turned to straddle him, kissing him forcefully. Jean-Luc kissed her back and did his best to run his fingers through her hair as he opened his mouth to her ministrations. He grunted at his own inadequacy, annoyed at his limitations. 

Beverly broke off the kiss to whisper at him, “Don’t worry about your hands. Let me love you.” 

Jean-Luc grinned. “Thought you said you didn’t want to do all the driving?” 

Beverly kissed him again. “I changed my mind.”


End file.
